DWB
by Red Tale
Summary: G1: Wheeljack’s invention works fine, it’s society that’s broken. Now featuring Ironhide, in honor of The National Day to Stop Police Brutality.
1. Wheeljack

DWB – expanded version

Wheeljack beamed with pride as he personally tested his human facsimile in the outlaying towns around the mountain base. Weaving even a simple hologram program into everyone's already intricate circuitry proved quite the challenge, but in the end, like all challenges, it had been gratifying. Intended to keep the Autobots from unnecessary interference by the human authorities, the research involved also yielded much useful information about the main life form on this new home planet.

But as significant as the utilitarian aspect of the project was, Wheeljack's real satisfaction came from the designing of the humans. It had started with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, of course, what doesn't start with them. When they heard about the project they showed Wheeljack a poster Spike had given them, depicting two Lamborghinis, one red and one yellow, each with a scantily clad human female draped along the hood. These were the humans they wanted, in fact it was the only human Sunstreaker would accept, he was very specific as to the shade of skin and style of hair. Sideswipe just asked that it be female.

As long as he was customizing all the holograms anyway, he asked the others for requests. Most of them didn't care, so he just pulled generic human images from ads. For Bumblebee he just created another Spike, for the rare occasions that Spike wasn't already inside. But he had fun with the special orders, it was both artistic and informative. Jazz requested Nina Simone, one of his favorite human singer, Raul applied for Dennis Rodman on Tracks' behalf, and Prowl asked for a facsimile of Garrett Augustus Morgan, the human he admired most for inventing the traffic light, with out which traffic law and order would not exist on Earth.

It didn't take long for the holograms to get put into practice, two separate Decepticon attacks, a humanitarian mission to put out a forest fire, plus patrols around the area had all the autobots out of the base over the next day. Even Wheeljack got to proudly display his own reincarnation of George Washington Carver, the man who invented three-hundred things to do with an earth peanut, a human after his own energon pump.

As a personal side project, and because his own programming network has some room for extras, he'd also added a dog, specifically a Labrador Retriever. He'd frequently seen images of dogs and humans in cars together and thought that it might help deflect closer scrutiny.

A few reports had started to come in, indicating that for some the addition of human facsimiles seemed to be attracting more attention by police, but not consistently enough for Prime to discard the program. Wheeljack suspected that perhaps some the holograms were flickering or something, unnoticed by the autobots but noticed by humans, especially those patrolling the streets looking for other suspicious humans. Maybe the addition of a dog would be a simple remedy.

He's thought the less populated rural towns would be a better test, because people would be noticing him more and he could gauge their reactions. Driving around he did notice several strange glances his way, although he verified the holograms functioned with perfect clarity. Something else must be triggering their attention.

After about twenty minutes of circling one town he decided to head to another and judge the reaction there. As he started to get on the highway a lone sheriff car pulled in behind him, lights flashing. Well, here was his big chance to see how the dog worked in defusing an actual confrontation.

Wheeljack obediently pulled over and waited for the Sheriff to emerge. He noticed the Sheriff already had his hand at ready for his gun, apparently suspecting Wheeljack of a crime. But he hadn't so much as made an illegal left turn. Perhaps a crime had already been committed in this area and the sheriff was on high alert, in which case this was a good test of the human facsimile.

The sheriff slowly walked up to the driver side window, which Wheeljack obediently lowered. He leered into the window, close enough that most humans would have shrunk away. Wheeljack's hologram stayed firmly in place, looking straight ahead. The sheriff looked the George Washington Carver replica over with a suspicious eye, and then centered on the dog.

"I'm gonna put this as nicely as possible. We don't allow your kind around here."

Wheeljack's pride deflated. Instead of solving the problem, the dog was making it worse. Well, he'll have to turn this into a learning lesson.

"I'm sorry Officer. Let me take care of that"

The dog disappeared.

"Is that better?"

At this point the cop, already unnerved by the unflinching black man before him and the strange non-panting dog which had been there a second ago, could no longer hide his fear. He'd heard of aliens in these parts, and he wasn't about to get abducted and have god-knows what happen to him. He slowly backed away to his car, got in and drove off.

"Well, I'm definitely going to have to work on this more", Wheeljack mused, as he headed back to base to do more research. Perhaps scrap the dog and instead make the facimile smile?


	2. Jazz

DWB - Jazz

Jazz found reason to be driving along US Route 84 , and so employed the new device Wheeljack had installed, a simple human prop in the front seat. Wheeljack allowed the autobots to request custimizations, and having grown very found of Nina Simone's music, Jazz requested a facimile of her. He knew enough about stealth to alter her appearance some, as Nina Simone was regrettably dead and her being seen driving a car might cause undo attention (Jazz assumed everyone on Earth must know who she is and what she looked like).

The sky unleashed a torrent of rain on him on this trip. He didn't mind the wet so much, in fact he thought it seemed to match the song he was currently focused on. He'd been through all her songs, and learned a lot about human beings, thier history and the relationships, and some useful lingo he would never have picked up from Telatran One. Some songs he had to listen to several times, or go back to after gaining some social experience in order to understand, and he had a working understanding of all but one of them.

Strange Fruit. He could not understand what she meant by that. He could find no reference to that phrase. It was a very sad melody, and as rain was an intricate part of being sad on Earth he actually welcomed the weather. He hoped maybe it would key him in on the signifigance of the song.

Suddenly red and blue lights flashed behind him. He obediently switched to the right lane, thinking the police car would need to speed past him in it's race for justice.

It switched with him. It was another minute before Jazz realized the police car was for him. He pulled over to the curb, wondering what could be wrong. A quick diagnostic check showed all his lights were working.

The cop was getting out of his car. Jazz realized his facimile would have to talk, and as he hadn't been prepared for this situation he now realized he had a female facimile and a male voice. He didn't have the ability to audioly disguise his voice. As the cop approached, Jazz scanned through his music files to pull words in Nina's voice from the stereo.

"Gonna need to see some ID", the officer requested as Jazz lowered the window halfway, trying not to let all the rain stream in.

Another situation Jazz hadn't anticipated. He had no registration, and even if he did his facimile wouldn't be able to hand it to anyone.

After a moment, the cop banged the side of the door.

"You hear me? What's your name?"

"Suzanne."

"I'm going to have to write you a ticket."

"Do What You Gotta Do."

He narrowed his eyes.

"You think this is funny?"

"I Think It's Going to Rain Today."

"You know, while you're driving around in your porche, I'm out here in the rain."

"It Be's That Way Sometimes", Jazz replied, trying to be sympathetic.

"Where'd you get that Porche, anyway?"

"Baltimore."

"Maybe you should step out of the car", the officer ordered, apparantly not satisfied with that answer.

Now Jazz was glad his was only a facimile. It would be awful for a human to have to come outside. The cop looked uncomfortable but at least had a waterproof jacket and wide-brimmed hat. And, there seemed now something sinister about the request, maybe it was all the listening about the oppression of black people but Jazz decided this encounter had gone on long enough.

"I'm gonna leave you now."

"I don't think so", the officer replied.

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

"Get out of the car", the officer ordered, drawing his gun.

"Ain't No Use", Jazz told him, driving away.

Three bullets hit him as he increased his speed and drove off the highway and onto farmland. The mud and rain made this difficult for most vehicles follow, but Jazz drove through the farm, onto a small road and then, several miles later, came across an isolated barn. All this took him less then ten minutes, enough time for the cop to have summened backup. Hearing several more sirens and a helicopter approaching the area, Jazz ducked into the barn and transformed, hoping that if worse comes to worse he can play it off as an innocent autobot who just happens to be in the area.

Fortunately the police didn't track him to the barn, the rain being so thourough as to have wiped out his tracks and they probebly didn't think he would have gotten this far. Enveloped in the darkness, lying in cold, wet, mud, watching the helicopter search lights in the distance, Jazz fingered the dents the bullets made in his body armour, glad he wasn't human.

"Mississippi Goddamn."


	3. Ironhide

A/N: Hey all. This chapter was written very fast and not as carefully as others, but I really wanted to publish it today and this was all the time I could give it. It's based on a true story that happened on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998 (and the whole series is written on various instances of DWB around the country).

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"What happened to you?!", Ratchet exclaimed, in an octave usually reserved for the twins.

Ironhide wobbled uneasily into the repair bay with two flattened tires, but still preferring this form of transport to actually trying to walk in robot form. Ratchet assisted him in transforming.

"I just had some trouble with humans", he replied.

"Why didn't you radio for help?"

"It…just happened so fast, and…I didn't want to bother Optimus with it. It was just a misunderstanding with the humans. They thought…well, I guess they thought I was a Decepticon. But once I transformed and showed them I'm an Autobot, they left me alone."

Ratchet examined the bullet holes, mainly in Ironhide's rear chassis. His left side also bore extensive damage, all the windows were shot out. Although Ironhide's armor protected his major components, bullets still caused pain. Ratchet winced imagining what it must feel like, and admiring how calm and collected Ironhide was. He set to work removing bullets, sealing holes, and replacing windows and wheels. Finally he repainted Ironhide so he was good as new.

"So, how did this happen? I thought you were using the halogram device Wheeljack installed for you."

"I was", Ironhide insisted, "It must have malfunctioned. All I know is I started being followed by police, and Optimus said to avoid contact with humans, so I just kept driving. Next thing I know I got five police on my tail, and then they just laid into me. And I didn't want to fire back, you know, with them just being humans, and we're trying to be low key, but I had to do something, so I transformed. And then they all just left me alone."

"Well, transform and let me look at your system."

Ironhide complied, and Ratchet examined him carefully. The program seemed flawless, showing eight young black humans riding an ordinary Earth van, as if they were going to a basketball game.

"Got me", Ratchet shrugged, "Just try and drive more carefully, okay?"


End file.
